


By Nightfall

by skarlatha



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Gwaine is Super Sexy, M/M, love spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Merlin both have epiphanies about love at exactly the same time while practice-fighting in the training yard. Unfortunately, they're somewhat conflicting epiphanies. This makes Arthur very grumpy indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Nightfall

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be set sometime during Season 3, but there are no spoilers, so it's safe to read even if you're not there yet.

It starts off very innocently.

Arthur and Merlin are in the training yard. Arthur is gleefully bashing with a blunted iron mace at the shield Merlin is holding, periodically pausing to call Merlin an idiot or a weakling. Merlin is trying valiantly to keep the shield up and is responding to Arthur’s insults with his trademark insubordinance. Standard stuff, really. Nothing out of the ordinary. And then two things happen, almost at the same time.

First, Arthur realizes that he’s in love with Merlin. He is mid-swing when he realizes this.

Second, Merlin drops his shield, gazing off to the east with a thunderstruck expression.

Arthur gives a shout of surprise and tries to stop his mace from hitting Merlin. Which he does, mostly successfully. “Mostly” meaning that he doesn’t kill his manservant or even maim him. But “mostly” also meaning “not quite.”

Merlin falls to the ground, whimpering, and Arthur drops to his knees beside him, calling out for someone to fetch Gaius. He reaches out and turns Merlin over onto his back.

“Merlin,” Arthur demands. “Are you alright?”

Merlin gazes up at him rapturously, his eyes looking almost golden in the light. Arthur gets lost in them for a couple of seconds before realizing that blue eyes should not ever look golden, no matter what sort of light they’re in. He blinks and shakes his head to clear it, and when he looks back at Merlin, the servant’s eyes are back to their normal blue.

Arthur can’t help thinking that this is what minstrels write songs about. The moment of realization. The moment when two people fall in love and then realize that they’ve always been meant for each other. He wonders if Merlin snores, and what sort of soup is Merlin’s favorite, and whether Merlin would enjoy morning sex or whether he’d have to bring him a cup of something hot to wake him up first. He smiles a goofy smile down at Merlin and opens his mouth to express his feelings for the first time.

Merlin is faster. “Oh, Arthur,” he breathes. “How did I never know before?”

Arthur’s heart soars and he smiles a little more brightly. “I don’t know,” he answers. “It seems so obvious now, doesn’t it?”

“What should I do?” Merlin asks, swallowing hard.

Arthur watches Merlin’s adam’s apple move and fights back a wave of lust. “I think usually in the songs and the tales, this is where the lovers kiss.”

Merlin looks panicked for a second, his eyes wide and his breathing speeding up. He licks his lips. “I’ve never kissed a man before,” he whispers, and the admission makes Arthur’s pulse pound even faster.

“Neither have I,” Arthur says softly, leaning ever so slightly farther down toward Merlin’s lips.

“It’s probably a lot like kissing a girl, don’t you think?” Merlin says, then winces visibly as he tries to shift his position.

The wince is enough to pull Arthur out of the moment. He looks up to see if help has arrived, and he’s relieved to see Gaius step briskly into the courtyard with a bag of medical supplies. “Gaius, over here,” he calls out. He looks back down at Merlin, who is looking off to the east again. “You’ll be fine, Merlin. I give you my word.”

“Thank you, Arthur,” Merlin says, slowly rolling his head back to look at Arthur again. “Is a Knight of Camelot allowed to be in love with another man?”

Arthur blushes very slightly and smiles. “I will be king one day,” he says softly, “and I will make it so. For you, Merlin.”

Merlin smiles back, and Arthur lets himself gaze into Merlin’s eyes for a few seconds before Gaius gently pulls him away and begins checking Merlin for injuries. After a few minutes, filled with a great deal of poking and prodding on Gaius’s part and yelps and whimpers on Merlin’s, Gaius stands up.

“Well?” Arthur demands, crossing his arms and raising an arrogant eyebrow at the physician.

“He will be fine, my lord,” Gaius says. “I will take him back to his room and give him something for the pain. He will not be able to perform heavy physical activity for a few days.”

Arthur is vaguely disappointed by this, because he has already begun planning some extremely heavy physical activity for Merlin now that he _knows_ , but he decides that he can wait until Merlin is feeling better. After all, he did hit the poor fellow fairly hard with a mace. He smiles at Merlin and waves over a few of the knights to carry him back to Gaius’s house. As they head away from the training yard, Merlin stops them. “Arthur?”

Arthur hurries over to Merlin’s side. “Yes, Merlin?”

“Don’t tell him,” Merlin whispers, shifting his eyes off to the east again.

Arthur furrows his brow. “Don’t tell who?”

“Gwaine,” Merlin answers.

“Of course,” Arthur says, then pauses. “Wait. What am I not telling Gwaine?”

Merlin rolls his eyes. “That I’m in love with him, of course. I want to tell him myself.”

Gaius turns his head quickly to the east to look at Gwaine, a wide-eyed expression of bewilderment on his face. Arthur wants to punch him. He probably knew this whole time, the elderly bastard. And he’d just stood there letting Arthur make a complete ass of himself in front of the knights. And then has the _audacity_ to pretend to be shocked about it.

Arthur just stands there fuming until the knights take Merlin away. Then he looks to the east, where Gwaine is standing there watching the events with the morning sun framing him like some sort of damned pagan god. A sexy, suave, charismatic pagan god. Who, just by standing there, has _stolen Arthur’s man_.

Arthur shoots Gwaine a very hostile look and stomps out of the training yard.

//

“It’s sorcery, Leon,” Arthur shouts, whirling around to continue his pacing the length of Leon’s room. “It has to be. It’s a spell.”

Leon has given up on watching Arthur pace and is instead working on what appears to Arthur to be a letter to his family. The knight makes a soft grunting sound of acknowledgement but doesn’t look up.

“Do you not hear me?” Arthur strides over to Leon’s desk and slams both hands down on it, then leans forward menacingly. “We have a sorcerer in the castle trying to take my manservant from me.” He pauses, then looks outraged. “It’s probably Gwaine himself. That whorish prat. It’s not enough to have all the ladies in Camelot eating out of his dirty little hands--” (here Arthur lifts both of his hands in a claw-like gesture and shakes them at Leon for emphasis) “--but now he has to take the men, too?” Arthur clenches his hands into fists and shakes those too. “We’re not safe. None of us are safe.” He turns to resume pacing, then whirls around again before he even gets to the end of the room. He points at Leon. “You’re not safe either. You’ll be in Gwaine’s bed by nightfall, mark my words. And as soon as you leave it, Percival will be there. And then probably Lancelot. There’ll be a line forming at his door and we will _all be in it_.”

Leon raises an eyebrow at Arthur’s rant. “My lord, with respect, I believe you’re overreacting.”

“Overreacting?” Arthur bellows, then points hard at the door. “ _Merlin_ is in _love_ with him. How in God’s name would that happen if it wasn’t sorcery?”

Leon snickers and tries (unsuccessfully) to hide it.

Arthur glares daggers at him. “What does that little smirk mean?”

“Nothing, sire,” Leon says, returning to his letter with great determination.

“I demand an answer, Sir Leon.”

Leon looks up from his letter and gives Arthur a look. “Only that it seems that you’re just slightly... _too_ worried about Merlin’s love life.”

Arthur snorts. “Of course I’m worried about Merlin’s love life. Do you have any idea how long it takes to train a manservant to be even as dismal at his job as Merlin is? Forever, that’s how long.” Arthur thinks about Merlin’s ridiculous ears and his chest floods with warmth. He grimaces.

“Are you sure, sire, that you don’t have... feelings for Merlin?”

Throwing his hands in the air, Arthur turns and storms out of the room.

//

Later, Arthur prowls the corridors of the castle, looking for servants to snarl at. He finds several and does his best Uther impression at them, sending them scampering away to wherever it is that servants go when they scamper away. _Probably to Gwaine’s bed_ , he thinks to himself sourly. He kicks at a nonexistent rock on the floor.

He passes a dark alcove, then pauses when he hears a soft moan come from it. He almost starts walking again. After all, the unspoken code of the castle is to ignore moaning sounds coming from dark alcoves, particularly after the Katrina episode. What had been seen during those days could never be unseen, and Arthur does not particularly want to repeat that experience. But then, just as he begins to walk away, he hears an actual word. Gwaine’s name. In Merlin’s voice.

Arthur narrows his eyes and sets his jaw, then whirls around and grabs a torch from a wall sconce. He tiptoes back to the alcove and thrusts the torch forward so that he can see into the shadows.

Gwaine has Merlin pressed against the wall and is kissing the servant’s neck. Merlin has one foot twined around Gwaine’s leg and has his neck arched and his eyes closed. “Yes, Gwaine, yes,” he murmurs. Neither man seems to notice Arthur standing there with a torch and an expression on his face that would send the Dorocha running back to the spirit world in terror.

Gwaine kisses his way up to Merlin’s ridiculous ear and whispers, “We can take this back to my room.”

Merlin’s eyes fly open and he groans out the word “yes” before his eyes focus on Arthur and he freezes. Gwaine stops kissing and slowly lets go of Merlin.

“There’s someone watching, isn’t there?” Gwaine asks, and Merlin nods. Gwaine turns around, sees Arthur, and smiles brightly. “Oh, good evening, sire. Did you need something?”

Arthur’s jaw twitches. “I need my manservant.”

“Can’t it wait?” Gwaine asks. “We’re sort of in the middle of something right now.”

“I do not pay him to fornicate with you in alcoves, _Sir_ Gwaine,” Arthur grits out. “So no, it can’t wait.” Arthur motions at Merlin. “Merlin. Come with me.”

Arthur sees Merlin shoot Gwaine an apologetic look. “Next time,” the servant murmurs.

_Over my dead, rotting corpse_ , Arthur thinks. He grabs Merlin by the arm and hauls him off toward Arthur’s room. When they get inside, he shoves Merlin toward the center of the room and lets go of him.

Merlin frowns at him. “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?” Arthur demands. “Get you away from Gwaine’s evil clutches before you defiled yourself in a hallway?”

Crossing his arms, Merlin gives Arthur a very insubordinate look. “I’m off duty,” he says. “And besides, we were just about to go back to his room so it wouldn’t be so public.”

“It’s _obscene_ ,” Arthur growls. “A knight of Camelot molesting a man in the corridors of the castle.”

“You said you didn’t mind,” Merlin returns, accusation heavy in his voice. “You said you’d make it alright. You said that when you were king, you would make it okay. For me.” His voice drops to a whisper. “You said you’d do it for me.”

“Yes, well,” Arthur says, storming over to his window and then back toward Merlin. “That was before I knew you meant _Gwaine_.”

“Who did you think I meant?” Merlin tilts his head slightly and Arthur has to restrain himself from grabbing him by the ears and kissing him until he shuts up.

“No one,” Arthur answers after a moment. “Anyone. Except Gwaine.”

“So,” Merlin says, dragging the word out as long as he can. “If I’d been kissing Percival or Leon, that would have been fine with you.”

“Yes,” Arthur says quickly, then pauses and glares at the floor. “No. No, that wouldn’t have been fine either.”

“Then what, Arthur?” Merlin tightens his crossed arms and stares. “What _did_ you mean when you said you’d make it okay? You’d make it okay for me to be gay as long as I didn’t actually _act_ gay with anyone?”

“I meant,” Arthur grits out, crossing the room and grabbing Merlin by both upper arms. “I thought you were talking about me, you ignorant child.”

Merlin’s expression goes blank, unfocused. He stares at Arthur with the most confused expression that the prince has ever seen on his face, and Arthur has seen Merlin look very confused indeed before. “What?” Merlin says.

Arthur pushes against Merlin, backing him up toward the poster of his bed. “I meant that I’d make it okay for you to be in love with _me_. Only me.” His breath catches in his throat, but he forces himself to even himself out. “No one else can touch you. You’re mine.”

Merlin licks his lips. “But Arthur...”

Arthur steps even closer, his eyes fixed on Merlin’s lips. “I swear to God, Merlin, if you say one thing about Gwaine...”

“But I’m in love with him,” Merlin says, turning his head and looking away. “I want to marry him, have children with him. He’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Arthur feels a surge of anger and he literally growls. “We’ll see about that,” he says, then leans in and kisses Merlin.

It’s not a gentle kiss. Merlin resists at first but Arthur is too determined to stop just yet, and by the time Arthur registers the resistance at all, Merlin has already softened under him, his hands curling around Arthur to clutch at the fabric of Arthur’s tunic. Arthur licks at Merlin’s lips and Merlin opens them for him with a soft moan. Arthur makes a conquest of Merlin’s mouth and twists his fingers in Merlin’s hair, kissing him hard and hungrily.

Merlin whimpers softly, trying to keep up with Arthur’s intensity, and Arthur is certain that he’s never loved anyone before now, not like this. He slows the kiss down until they’re kissing as equals, two men in love rather than a prince and his servant. After a long time, Arthur pulls back slowly and rests his forehead against Merlin’s.

“Do you still want Gwaine?” Arthur whispers, intending for the question to be his usual arrogant demand, but instead it comes out soft, uncertain.

“Gwaine?” Merlin laughs breathlessly. “Why would I want...” He breaks off mid-sentence, and Arthur lifts his head to watch Merlin’s face as it shifts from bewilderment to horror. “I was kissing Gwaine in the hallway, wasn’t I?”

Arthur nods grimly. “I hated it.”

“I didn’t,” Merlin says. “Not at the time, anyway. But now... what was I thinking?”

“I believe you were under an enchantment,” Arthur says. “Sorcery.”

“Oh,” Merlin says, then looks up and searches Arthur’s eyes. “Is that what this is? Sorcery? You’re kissing me because you’re under a spell too?”

Arthur thinks about this. He’s been enchanted before, and this doesn’t feel the same. He looks at Merlin and remembers times before when the light has caught the servant’s hair just so or when Merlin has said just the perfect thing at the perfect time. He thinks back on all the times he’s woken up from being unconscious and Merlin has been the one staring down at him with concern.

“No,” he says after a moment. “No, I don’t think it is.”

Merlin smiles at him. “Kiss me again?”

“Absolutely,” Arthur says, and for the first time in his life, Arthur does what Merlin tells him.

  
  



End file.
